


Reciprocity

by ariel2me



Series: Drabble/Ficlet Collection [17]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-01-17
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 21:38:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 4,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3184091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ariel2me/pseuds/ariel2me
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Stannis/Melisandre drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**One-word prompt: Earth**

They called Dragonstone bleak and forbidding, these indulged and cosseted Westerosi, who had never known true darkness, never had to fear the real absence of light. 

In Asshai, the stones that built the city were all black; black, greedy and rapacious, devouring all light, leaving only gloom and doom in its wake.

Her night fires burned bright and strong, here in Dragonstone.         

In Asshai, the earth was barren, sterile,  _dead_.

She walked barefoot along the beach, here in Dragonstone, feeling the earth beneath her feet,  _alive_ ,  _alive_ , alive and kicking.    

“I was not born here, in Dragonstone.” His voice came trailing her wake.

She waited. You had to wait, with this man. You could not show him the way by  _showing_  him the way, by opening the door wide and beckoning to him, “ _Here, come to_   _me_.  _Come with me, to the light.”_

He would never come, that way. Stubborn, distrustful and suspicious to the last, true to his own nature.

You had to wait for him to believe that he was finding his own way out of the darkness, to search for the crack that let in the light, to break down that door with his own strength, driven by his own conviction.

“Your  _prophecy_. Born amidst salt and smoke. I was born in Storm’s End, in the same room high up the drum tower where my father was born, where my father’s father was born.”

“I know, my king. But there is merely being born - being pulled out of a mother’s belly - and then there is  _truly_  being born.”

He scoffed. “ _Another_  prophecy? Is there no end to your clever words?”

She opened her fist to show him the glittering sand gathered in her palm. “You scooped this earth with both hands, clenched them so tightly that your fingers bled. That was the day the raven came from King’s Landing with Robert’s command, naming you Lord of Dragonstone, and naming Renly Lord of Storm’s End. That was the day you killed the child, and a man was born in its place, here in Dragonstone, here amidst salt and smoke.”

Eyes narrowed with suspicion, he asked, “How would you know that?”

“The flame knows many things, Stannis.”

And a wife, a wife remembered even more.

And Melisandre, Melisandre of Asshai-by-the-Shadow, who  _had_  known true darkness, who knew what it was to mourn for the light, to grieve for its absence, would forget nothing in her wake.  


	2. Chapter 2

**One-word prompt: Slumber**

Her face next to him was the most peaceful sight he had seen since they day they set foot in the Stormlands. A stray strand of hair had fallen over her left eye. He made a move to push it away, but halted suddenly, his hand hovering over her face, his eyes never leaving her tightly shut eyes.

_She shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be here._

_We shouldn’t be here._

But they _were_ here, in his pavilion, sharing a bed.

He was once a man who knew exactly who he was, and what he was capable of.

He was no longer that man now.

_Who am I, if I am not who I have always been?_

_A man is a sum of his parts - past, present and future_. The maester who was like a father to him had told him that, once upon a time. The maester haunted his dreams too, along with his brothers, his mother, his father and countless others, some nameless and faceless.

 _The dead do not speak_ , he had told his little brother once, when the little boy was haunted by dreams of the dead, in a castle full of dead men and dead women dying on an empty belly.

He knew better now.

She did not stir when he sat up, the rise and fall of her chest constant and evenly spaced, as if she was deep in a peaceful slumber. But somehow, he still knew. Knew that she was only pretending, knew that sleep was not something she needed; just as she always knew when to come to him, and when to keep her distance.

He never sent for her, never called out her name.

He never told her to keep her distance, never sent her away when she came to him.

Did she see it in her flames? The dreams he dreamed, the blood sullying the hands he had sworn to his onion knight were clean, the brother who lived - still lived in his dream - grinning and laughing, peach juice dribbling down his chin. He could taste the sweetness and tartness of the peach on his tongue, could almost forget that he had refused the peach angrily and thundered loudly at his brother – “I did not come here to eat fruit!”

He told her none of this. Asked her none of the questions swirling in his mind.

_How did my brother really die?_

_Were my hands truly clean?_

Yet she knew. She still knew. She came to him when he needed her. Prayers were for the nightfires and the true believers in his army; they would do nothing for him, would not soothe him to sleep, she seemed to know that as well.

In daylight, she spoke to him of his duty, of Azor Ahai reborn and his tasks, of defeating his enemies, of prophecies and plans and schemes.

At night, she barely spoke a word. _She_ was the word, by herself more than enough, more than any spoken words of comfort and reassurance could have done for him.

 _Here I am_ , she was declaring with her presence, _the true me, truly here_.

Even if at the moment, she was pretending to be asleep, when she was actually awake.


	3. Chapter 3

**One-word prompt: Stay**

Her room was never dark. The castle might be shrouded in darkness, the whole world could be plunged into blackness, but the flames would continue to burn and burn in Melisandre’s room. He looked for her amidst the tangled sheets and the plump pillows. She was not there. He looked to the hearth, where he should have known to look from the very start.

“My king.” She did not turn her gaze away from the fire. “Have you come to see your great enemy once more?”

“What was it I saw? In the fire. Your sorcery?”

She turned to face him. “I showed you the true enemy. The one you are destined to defeat.”

“The Lannisters are my enemy.” He had lost. Lost to the bastard born of incest. Lost to the Imp, to the raging wildfire, to whatever monstrosity masquerading as Renly’s shade.

“Do not despair, my king. The great battle has yet to begin.” She took his arm before he had the chance to flinch at the touch. They walked together to the hearthfire.

“Look.”

There it was again. Ashes that looked like snow. The ring of torches. The dark shapes moving through the snow. He shivered from the sudden cold.

“What are they?”

“The servants of the Great Other. The Great Other who would bring darkness and endless nights to the realm.”

His realm. His people.

His duty to protect them.

Melisandre’s answer was no help at all, if he was truly meant to fight this enemy. “Where are they? How can they be defeated?”

He waited for her reply. None seemed to be coming.

“Or does your god not show that in the flames?” He scoffed.

“Patience, my king. First you must defeat the enemies closer to home. Only then would you have the men, and the power, to do battle with the Great Other. To defeat the true enemy, in the only battle that truly matters.”

 _The true enemy._ _The only battle that truly matters._  He pondered those words.  _Her_  words. She needed him as much as he needed her. Or rather, her god needed him, she would have said.

The fire was only a fire once again. No ashes, no snow, no ring of torches. The flame burned brightly, but still without the power to banish the coldness deep in his bones.  _She_  looked warm enough, still gazing into the fire with a rapturous look on her face, seeing whatever it was she was seeing that he was shut out from sharing, denied from understanding.

Communing with the flames. Communing with her god. That ecstatic expression on her face was not something he had seen before. Not even when -

 _No_! He would not think of that. Of his sin. Of his betrayal of his wedding vows.

He jerked his arm free from her grasp. “I’m leaving,” he said. His voice sounded angry to his own ears. He failed to comprehend why it should be so, and that only served to increase his fury.

“Stay,” she said, her hand reaching out to him.

He was clenching his fist so tightly the bones rattled and his knuckles were drained of blood. He could not stay. There was no reason to stay. The reason died when she told him that his fires burned low. If he stayed, this time he could not convince himself that it was not for his own sake, rather than for the sake of the realm.

 _You could not deceive yourself, you mean?_  It was his mother’s voice, Selyse’s voice, his own voice. Accusing him.

“You need rest, my king. When was the last time you slept through the night?”

When indeed? Before Blackwater. No, even longer than that, before Renly died. A dreamless sleep untouched by a master’s potion, unsoiled by screams and muttered ramblings.

“Come,” she whispered, her hand outstretched, still reaching out to him. She did not take his arm as she had when she led him to the fire. This time, she waited for him to reach for the hand she was offering. Waited for him to reach for her.

He was asleep moments after his head touched the pillow. He slept a dreamless sleep till the morning. Her eyes were closed when he woke, but he knew that she was awake, knew that she had been awake the whole night. Watching her flames, or watching him? He did not want to know the answer, so he never asked the question.


	4. Chapter 4

**One-word prompt: Comfort**

She feared the dark. It took him far too long to understand that. She had warned him often enough about the coming darkness, about the long night that would never end, but those were meant figuratively, he had always believed, referring to the forces of the Great Other triumphing over her Lord of Light.

It had not occurred to him before, that what she feared more was  _literal_  darkness, the absence of light that was not merely a figure of speech to imply the lack of faith, but an actual, tangible,  _palpable_  non-presence.   

There she sat, by the dancing flame, her eyes searching, always searching. There he was, in her bed, pretending to sleep, his eyes watching, always watching.  A gust of wind blew strong through the half-closed window, and suddenly, they were both completely in the dark.

He laughed, a mirthless scoffing sound that echoed in the silent room. “What omen does  _that_  portent, my lady? If a mere gust of wind could put out your god’s flame, then what hope do we have against the forces of true darkness?”  

She  _always_  had an answer, before. She  _always_ had a reply ready, to whatever hole he attempted to poke in her faith, in her god, in her flame. It was as if she already knew the words he would speak while he was still rearranging them in his head, while those words were still half-formed, incomplete.

But not this time. This time, her tongue was strangely silent.  

“My lady?”

He knew fear. He could smell fear, on grown men, women and children alike. But more than that, the quality of her stillness was painfully, and horribly, familiar. This was him standing beside Robert at the parapet watching the gathering storm finally broke, nails dug deep into his own palm, muttering silent prayer to the Stranger with each heartbeat –  _no, not yet. You must not take them just yet, my mother and father._

When he reached her side, she turned her face away, this woman who had taken his face in her own hands, whose fingers had stroked and soothed him back to sleep night after night when the dreams, the screams and all the blood adamantly refused to leave him  _be_.   

He did not know the words, or the gestures. “I should not have laughed,” he finally said, the apology implied but not spoken, aware that he was failing spectacularly at something she had done for him far too many times to count.  

“I will lit a candle,” he said, about to move away.

“No. Stay,” she said, but this time, her hand did not reach out for him, like it used to, and her face was still turned away, determinedly. 

They sat in the dark, together, as close as you could possibly be without actually touching, and for once, his eyes left her be, ceased watching and examining her face looking for any crack, any sign of doubt, any trace of uncertainty.


	5. Chapter 5

**One-word prompt: Lover (Modern AU)**

She was not waiting for him. She sat in her parlor turning her cards, reading the future, working the present.    

She never waited for him; her -

 _Say the word. Say it_! Robert’s voice taunted him.

Her  _lover_.

What an absurd word it was.  _Lover_.

What a ridiculous phrase it was.  _Making love_.

As if love was somehow a given. And yet, for all that, still had to be manufactured, produced, coaxed and shaped into being.

 _I fuck. I don’t make love_ , Robert boasted.

(Only to the dead. Robert made love to the dead every night. The dead could not breathe a word of protest, after all; could not prove to be a disappointment, could not find him a disappointment in return.)

“You came,” she said, turning her head only slightly, all too briefly, not in the least surprised by his presence.

Had he become that predictable? Just another card for her to read?

“I knew you would,” she said.

“You know nothing of the sort! How  _could_  you know?”

There was that smile again, on her face - not gloating, not boastful, but almost sad. The one that said,  _I know more than you believe possible. I know all the secrets of the world._

The words that came out of her mouth were, “I know it, because  _you_  know it.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Three-sentence drabble, politics AU**

When the story broke, not just on cable news and from the mouths of gasbags Fox News and MSNBC pundits and commentators, but on the front pages of the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal as well, his campaign almost exploded, presidential ambition blown to smithereens two months before the primary. 

"You can’t call her," Davos warned him, the seasoned campaign manager ready to do battle at the fore now, not the old friend who had known Stannis close to two decades.

She would be laughing at the absurdity and ridiculousness of it all, rolling her eyes at the fact that it was her supposedly “ _strange and un-American religious and spiritual beliefs_ ” that seemed to bother the media more than his alleged infidelity, reminding him that “I was right, wasn’t I?”


	7. Chapter 7

**Three-sentence drabble, apocalypse  AU**

She left him to find the true savior, her real messiah, the one who could save the world, the person who had been in her visions and her flames all along, but she had been too blind to see for a long time - blinded by her own hubris, perhaps - or else blinded by the things she was adamant she did not feel for her fake messiah, or maybe blinded by a combination of both.

When she came back to him, he knew that the world was doomed, that they were all doomed for oblivion, for she would never have abandoned her mission, her life-work, while it still had any chance of succeeding. They exchanged no words about her leaving and then returning; they waited in companionable silence for the end to come, because everything that needed to be said had been said already by her returning, and by him waiting for her to return.


	8. Chapter 8

**Three-sentence drabble, Regency AU**

She was wrong, all wrong - her corset too loose, her fiery red hair too free-flowing, her smile too defiant, her words too forceful, her tone too self-assured - as if she had wagered a great sum of money that she could break  _all_  the rules and convention of polite society in just one night.

“Ask me to dance,” she whispered in his ear, when he pretended that she was a stranger unknown to him, pretended that they had not spent countless hours debating Reformation and the Church, pretended that she had not defeated him in numerous arguments (and how much that had secretly thrilled him), pretended that his palms had never, not once, not ever, cupped her heart-shaped face and grazed her ruby-red lips.

He took her hand and they danced, danced like the strangers that they never were; and somehow he managed to pretend, perhaps for the last time, that he was still  _that_  man, the one who had never broken any rule in his life.


	9. Chapter 9

**Five-sentence drabble, Stannis/Melisandre, politics AU**

His campaign survived the infidelity scandal, thanks to Donald Trump sucking all the oxygen and attention away from other candidates. At Iowa State Fair, grinding his teeth and refusing yet another piece of deep-fried meat on stick he was expected to gobble and smile his way through on camera, he heard her voice holding forth to a group of reporters, saw her eyes strayed towards him, and had to look away before his eyes were locked with hers.    

She is running to make a point about birthright citizenship and immigration reform, this woman born on American soil, this daughter of an undocumented immigrant whose mother was deported when she was a child of ten, leaving her at the mercy of the foster care system; The New Yorker speculated in a long profile that read more like a novella.

“Sources claim that Senator Baratheon’s campaign is none too pleased with the Senator’s former mistress (and former advisor) entering the race,” Politico “reported” in a snide article that read more like a gossip column.  

They were once a team, they were intimate, they were lovers, yes, yes and yes to all three, but she was never  _his_  mistress, or  _his_  anything, she was never his to begin with, or anyone else’s for that matter; this woman who had once made it her life-work advising candidates and working to elect politicians in the shadow, but who has now decided that it was her time to step forward into the limelight, in her own right, to “ _save the world_ ” as she had once earnestly told him, this time without any proxy.


	10. Chapter 10

For the prompt: "They are staring at us."

“They are staring at us.” Staring at _him_ , judging him, mocking him.

“They are stone dragons, my king. Their eyes do not see. Not yet. Not until -”

“You speak of creatures stirring in the flames, yet you draw the line at stone dragons that could stare? Where is the line?”

“The line, my king?”

“Between what is possible and not possible. Your … _magic_ … _gift_ … whatever you wish to call it. Where is the line?” _What are the rules? Where is the order in this universe where anything seems possible, yet so much is not possible?_

Her hand grazed his cheek. She smiled. “Always looking for order, looking to make sense of the chaos of the world.”

He turned away. It angered him, her claim to know him, to understand him. That she was often close to the truth angered him even more.  

“Who is Melony?” _I know your secret too, my lady,_ he wanted to say. _You are not the only one_.   _The only one who could claim understanding._

But that was not the truth. He knew nothing, understood nothing. _Who is she? What is she?_

And the questions he would never even admit to himself he was asking: W _hat am I to her? Who is she to me, truly?_

Her hand clutching the ruby choker on her throat was the only indication that his question had discomfited her. “Melony? I do not know the name, my king.”

“You called out her name in your sleep. Is she your sister?”

_Do you dream of her, like I dream of Renly? Was it sorrow I heard in your voice? Or guilt? Or despair?_

Her eyes locked with his, bold and defiant. “You are mistaken, my king. I have never said that name, awake or in my sleep.”

“I heard you clearly. Do not lie to me, my lady.”

“She is dead. I killed her, the same way you killed the boy so a man would be born in its place, the day Windproud sank.”

“She is … _you_? _Was_ … you?”    

“She is no one. She is long gone.” Her eyes met his skeptical gaze. “I can forget,” she insisted. “I _have_ forgotten.”

His hand grazed her cheek. “But can you forgive?”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something lighter for the holiday season : ) : ) Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays <3

**~The Reluctant Santa~**

“No one will be sitting on _my_ lap, I can tell you that,” Stannis grumbles.

Melisandre laughs. “Isn’t that a requirement for being Santa? How will the children tell you what they want for Christmas?”

“The children know full well that ‘Santa’ is really Mother and Father with their deep pockets,” Stannis scoffs. “Remember last year when Davos played Santa during the neighborhood block party? Most of the children were not even looking at him when they shouted out their wishlist for Christmas. They were looking at their parents. Why keep up the Santa charade at all?”

“Not all the children, surely. The younger ones still believe in Santa.”

“And is that any better, to believe in such nonsense?”

“These children are different.”

“How are they different? Our neighborhood did not suddenly turn into a magical kingdom with rainbows and unicorns. They are the same children as last year, only a year older.” A year older, and louder, and more stubborn and spoiled.

“I’m not asking you to play Santa for the neighborhood block party. There could be riots in the streets if Davos is demoted. His Santa is a great crowd-pleaser.”

“Then what is it for?”

“It’s a party for children living in group homes and foster care.”

Melisandre herself had grown up with a succession of foster parents, the identity and whereabouts of her real parents unknown. She seldom speaks of it, deflecting Stannis’ questions with questions of her own about Stannis’ childhood. 

 _See? If you are so uncomfortable talking about this, why do you expect me to do it?_ That seems to be her unspoken rebuke.

“I can’t do it,” Stannis says, in a panic. “What if they ask for their parents? What if that’s their Christmas wish? What am I supposed to tell them?”

“They won’t ask for that. These children have been through so much. They are strong and resilient. They know better than to wish for the impossible.”

Somehow, that seems the saddest thing of all.

“Did _you_ ever wish for -”

Melisandre quickly interrupts, before Stannis could complete the question. “You’ll have to practice the laugh,” she says.

“I know how to laugh,” Stannis snaps. Why does everyone keep saying he doesn’t know how to laugh? Just because he doesn’t find silly, frivolous things funny at all, it doesn’t mean -

“I know you know how to laugh, Stannis, but the Santa laugh is very distinct. You have to try it out.”

How hard could it be, Stannis thought. “Ho, ho, ho,” he tries, with no hint of jolliness at all.

“That’s it, I’m calling Davos,” Melisandre declares.

“You want _Davos_ to be your Santa?” 

Fine, if that’s what she wants. Why should he care? Get Davos, then. Davos, the best Santa in the world.

“Oh don’t sulk. I don’t want Davos as my Santa. I just want him to teach you how to do the Santa laugh.”

 _I don’t sulk,_ he is about to say, but her kiss shuts him up pretty quickly. 


	12. Chapter 12

**Prompt: "Some like it hot."**

"Some like it hot, but I prefer it -"

"Lukewarm?"

"Warm, not lukewarm," he protested, with some indignation.

"Of course." She gave him a pointed look, a meaningful look. He felt the need to remind her that they were talking about lemon water, not about ... well, whatever it was she had been thinking about with her 'lukewarm' comment.

"I do like it hot, at times," he admitted, somewhat reluctantly.

Eyebrow arched, she asked, "Only at times? Which times?"

"When it is really cold outside," he replied. "Nothing is better than a cup of really hot lemon water on a cold, cold day."

"Nothing? Truly nothing?" she challenged him.

"Maybe not nothing," he conceded, as his arms reached out to fold her into his embrace.

"And do you like honey in your lemon water?"

"Absolutely not! Lemon water should be tart, not cloyingly sweet. That is their rightful nature."

"Never mind. I am sure we could find a better use for the honey," she whispered in his ear.

Honey-poached peaches, he was thinking, before her smile and the look in her eyes made him realize that she was not talking about using the honey to make dessert. 

"Oh," he said, just the one word. And then, "Yes. Oh, yes."


End file.
